Head of Digital & AI Production Operations

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren’s reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company’s brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world’s most widely recognized families of consumer brands.

At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

,

The Senior Director of Digital & AI Production Operations leads a global, 24x7 support organization responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, and continuous improvement of digital and in-store technology platforms. This role connects business priorities to operational execution by leveraging data, automation, and AI-driven insights to deliver measurable outcomes across customer experience, technology strategy, and financial performance.

,

This leader drives operational excellence across incident management, service reliability, and partner performance while building a modern, scalable operating model that emphasizes proactive detection, rapid resolution, and a strong culture of continuous learning. Vendor and partner management will be a significant component as the organization evolves toward a more AI-enabled operating model. The role also owns strong budget discipline—not only for cost control, but to set clear guardrails, create efficiencies, and reinvest savings back into transformation

Travel: Travel is expected; specific frequency and key locations will be aligned with HR and business stakeholders during the hiring process.

, Operational Leadership & Strategy

• Lead a global, distributed ProdOps organization supporting online platforms, retail systems, and call center technologies.
• Connect operations more tightly to business objectives and technology strategy, with outcomes tied to customer experience, revenue impact, and measurable financial results.
• Build and sustain a 24x7 support model balancing automation, AIOps, and human expertise.

AI-Driven Operations & Automation

• Champion AIOps by identifying repeatable tasks and automating workflows to reduce operational overhead and improve service reliability.
• Leverage machine learning and predictive analytics for proactive alerting, incident prevention, and root cause analysis.
• Continuously assess team capacity and shift effort from reactive support to value-added initiatives.

Incident & Problem Management

• Establish and enforce a robust incident response framework including proactive alerting and monitoring, rapid triage and prioritization based on business impact, and end-to-end ownership from investigation to resolution.
• Refine escalation paths to ensure critical issues are addressed with urgency and accuracy.
• Lead post-incident reviews and release retrospectives to drive continuous improvement and learning.

Partner, Vendor & Service Management

• Define and manage vendor and partner SLAs, ensuring accountability, transparency, and consistent delivery.
• Establish clear service ownership models (e.g., RACI) across internal teams and external partners.
• Drive partner performance through metrics, governance, and continuous alignment to business value and reliability outcomes.

Financial & Budget Management

• Own budget discipline for Production Operations, using clear guardrails to manage spend and fund priorities.
• Identify efficiencies through automation, standardization, and vendor optimization; reinvest savings back into transformation and capability building.
• Partner with Finance and Technology leaders to forecast, track, and communicate operational investments and realized benefits.

Data-Driven Decision Making

• Develop and maintain operational dashboards and KPIs, including system uptime and availability, incident resolution times, escalation trends, pa…